Living so far from our homeland, there is an unwritten policy that when travelling to Tigray to visit family, you must empty your luggage of all clothing and fill it with as many spices as you can muster past customs. We would try to make clandestine exits from Australia so that friends didn't plead with us to just bring back one or two kilos of shiro for them in our haul.

This idea inspired me to share my mother's kitchen with the Melbourne culinary scene in 2015 by opening Saba's Ethiopian Restaurant.

This is not your regular cookbook! The recipes are the legacy of an extraordinary woman - my mother, Tekebash Gebre - born in Tigray in the shadows of the Aksumite dynasty, under the rule of the last Ethiopian emperor. Her formative years were spent under a communist regime before she fled to Sudan during a civil war that gripped the nation for 17 years.

She has been on a migration journey ever since, but her heart continues to beat to the drums of Tigray. Despite having spent more time abroad than she has at home, she is unequivocally Tigraweyti. That is the complexity of identity and home: it cannot be captured by the status of your citizenship, but rather it is an intangible mark within your being.

She has worked with food in one way or another all her life, from landing her first job as a live-in cook in Khartoum, being a housewife, becoming a street-food vendor to raise a child, working as a kitchen hand in restaurants below minimum wage in Australia and being a head chef at her daughter's restaurant on one of Melbourne's most competitive hospitality strips. My mother not only worked with food but loved her children through it too. As I went through her door she would hold a utility bill in one hand, yelling at me to ring them so they can explain why her bill was higher than it should be, which was followed immediately by 'What do you want to eat?'.

My mama's Tigray cuisine was developed in diaspora communities on her journey across continents. Sudanese food in particular has always been intertwined, with some dishes merged and some ingredients adopted into existing recipes, but some are kept distinctly separate.

When we opened the restaurant, it was booked out for two weeks straight and won accolades beyond our imagination, from The New York Times, Broadsheet and beyond. I tell you this to say that the woman is good, and potentially a pan whisperer. Throughout the five years of running Saba's Ethiopian Restaurant, we never had a recipe book or any measuring equipment, simply her taste buds. I attempted to write the restaurant recipes down but my mother refused - she preferred to work without recipes. So, she cooked using her tongue and I managed front of house from the heart. Food is the way Tegaru show love and keep culture alive, and we wanted the food to be true to us.

We have now finally sat down together to write these recipes to share with you a delectable story, I suppose. I call this book Tekebash & Saba. Food is our familial cord to each other, and to home. It's a window into our story and that of Tegaru.

You can leave out the lamb to make this dish vegan.

Ingredients

Method

1. In a saucepan, saute the onion in sunflower oil over medium heat until soft. Add the garlic and saute until translucent.

2. Add the dilik and turn the heat down to low. Keep stirring, adding water as necessary to stop it sticking.

3. Add the tomato and cumin and cook until the tomatoes are soft. It should take approximately 15 minutes.

4. Add the meat, stir, then add enough water to submerge the meat. Increase the heat to medium and cook for approximately 20 minutes, until tender.

5. While the meat cooks, chop the okra. You want to cut off both ends of the okra and chop it to the same size as the meat.

6. Once the meat is almost cooked - about five minutes away - add the okra and salt to taste. Cook for around five to seven minutes, until the okra is tender. Avoid overcooking the okra, as it has a tendency to become slimy.

Serves 6.

Ingredients

Method

1. Using a dry non-stick frying pan over medium heat, roast all the dry ingredients except for the chilli powder and salt, until the aromas go out. This should take approximately five minutes. Tip them onto a plate and leave to cool down.

2. Once cooled, use a blender to grind the spices into a smooth, fine texture.

3. Transfer this mixture to a food processor, add the chilli powder and salt and mix the ingredients well.

4. Add 750ml water and the oil and mix until it's firm and looks like playdough. Put in a container with a tight-fitting lid and store in the fridge for up to one year.

Tips:

When using this mixture, scoop it out using a dry spoon and avoid double-dipping to ensure your paste doesn't go off.

I recommend making this recipe in bulk as it stores well, but you can reduce the quantity if you prefer.

Makes about 1kg.

In Tigray there are special "meat houses". These are restaurants with butcheries attached that usually serve meat exclusively. You choose your cut and have it cooked for you. It is not customary that vegetables accompany meat.

Ingredients

Method

1. Heat some sunflower oil in a stockpot or saucepan over medium heat and brown the beef, using tongs to turn it, then add some salt. The beef will start to release its fats; let it cook in them. Take the beef off the heat once all the liquid has evaporated.

2. Heat some more oil in a frying pan over medium heat and saute the onions, capsicum and chilli for about one minute.

3. Add the tesmi, meat, paprika to taste and toss until brown. For the last minute of cooking add the rosemary sprigs, then remove.

4. Serve with injera and a side of awaze.

Tip: You can pat your meat dry and sprinkle it with cornflour and salt before cooking to ensure tenderness.

Serves 2.

Spiced butter is used predominantly when cooking meat dishes and can be made using margarine if you are vegan.

Ingredients

Method

1. In a dry frying pan over medium heat toast the fenugreek seeds until they are a light brown colour.

2. Grind the fenugreek and cardamom seeds in a blender for a few seconds, until coarsely ground.

3. Melt the butter in a saucepan over the lowest heat.

4. Add all the ingredients to the pot and stir for 15-20 minutes until the onion and garlic become brown.

5. Remove from the heat and let it sit until it cools down but doesn't solidify. Strain the butter into a dry container. This will last for months in the fridge.

Makes about 3 cups.

You'll need to start this recipe two days ahead, but most of that time you're just letting the fermentation happen. You will need woven mats for the injera to cool down on. These are usually available in Asian and African general purpose stores.

Ingredients

Method

1. Stir the teff flour and dry yeast together - we traditionally do this by hand, but a stand mixer can also be used. Gradually add the water, taking breaks to knead the dough. Be careful you don't add too much water - it should be smooth and slightly sticky (like playdough), but not wet. Leave the mixture in an airtight container overnight in a warm place. Your kitchen bench or pantry will suffice.

2. The next day, add enough water to thin out the mixture to a pancake batter consistency. Cover and let it sit overnight again.

3. When you open it, a sour smell may be omitted and there may potentially be a dark layer that looks like mould. This will be aerobic yeast. Discard the top layer of liquid. You will be left with a thick dough.

4. Bring 250ml water to the boil in a small saucepan. Scoop a half cup of the dough and stir it into the boiling water using a whisk. Ensure it's mixed really well. It will have the consistency of a thickshake.

5. Add this batter to the rest of the dough and ensure you mix well. The batter's consistency should be between a pancake and crepe batter. Add more lukewarm water if you need it. This process ensures that the injera is soft. Cover and let it sit for two hours.

6. Place a non-stick frying pan (that has a lid) over medium heat and use a small jug (or ladle) to pour the mixture all around the pan. You want to make it thicker than a crepe but not as thick as a pancake. Leave it uncovered until half of the injera has tiny holes, then cover the pan with the lid for five to 10 seconds to steam-cook the top.

7. Gently use a butter knife to remove the injera onto traditional woven mats. Leave the injera on their mats on the bench to cool, ensuring that you don't stack them as they will stick together.

8. Once cool, serve the injera as a base with stew on top and extra rolled injera on the side.

Note: One hundred per cent teff can be hard to work with. You can supplement it by replacing 50 per cent of the teff with sorghum or wheat flour.

Makes 12.

An interesting delicacy Tegaru and Ethiopians enjoy is a spicy raw meat dish - steak tartare taken to another level. It is served at large celebrations, such as weddings, and at special eateries. The meat is very lean beef diced into small cubes and enjoyed with this chilli paste and areki.

Ingredients

Method

1. Put all the ingredients in a food processor and blend. The mixture should be like tomato sauce, but granulated. Add water as needed if the mixture is too dry.

Tips:

This mixture will keep in an airtight container in the fridge for 3 months or so.

You can also add this to plain Greek-style yoghurt for a nice quick dip, or add it to mayonnaise-based salad dressings for a bit of a kick.

I prefer to make a big quantity of this so it's always on hand, but you can make a smaller amount if you like.

Makes 700g.